Chapter Text
“Goddamnit,” Leonard mutters to himself as he tries to get his rear wheel back on. He’d been proud of himself: he’d managed to put a new tube in after getting a flat from a nail. But now he can’t get the wheel back in right for the life of him. Trying to do it on a crowded sidewalk isn't helping. And God, why is it so cold out? It’s July but couldn’t be more than 60 out, and he swore he hadn’t seen the sun in days. June had clearly been some sort of goddamn trick.
“Bones, what are you doing wrenching on the ground there?”
Leonard can’t decide if Jim’s the first or last person he wants to see at that moment. He settles on pretending he doesn’t hear him.
“Let me help you,” offers Jim, crouching down next to Leonard.
“I’ve got it, damn it.”
“You sure about that?”
With a huff he isn’t proud of, Leonard hands his bike off to Jim. Jim does something with his rear brake and easily slides the tire through. He then gets the rear wheel back in and nimbly threads the chain back around the rear cassette and through the derailleur. He checks a few things before tightening everything up. The whole thing doesn’t take more than fifteen seconds.
“All set,” he says, rolling the bike over to Leonard, then stops to look him up and down. “You cold, Bones?”
Leonard is standing huddled in just his short sleeve scrubs. He notices now that Jim has on jeans with the cuff rolled up above his right ankle, a hoodie, and his denim jacket.
“It’s July!”
“Didn’t they tell you? ‘The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.’”
“How poetic.”
“All right my delicate Southern flower, I gotta get back to work, but let me give you this.”
Jim shucks his jacket and takes off his hoodie to hand to Leonard. Maybe it was the mention of flowers, but holding it, Leonard is reminded of the goldenrod that bloomed on the edges of his grandma’s farm in October back in Georgia. Which, he feels honor-bound to note, was still warmer than San Francisco in July.
He’s ready to hand it back, remembering his resolve to not get entangled with Jim. But Jim is already riding off. The sweatshirt isn’t exactly Leonard’s color, but it looks warm and probably more visible in the foggy dusk than his blue scrubs. Once he has it on, he can’t help but notice its distinct scent. If he’d thought about it, he would have guessed it’d smell like sweat and stale cigarette smoke, and that is in there too, but mostly it’s something that reminds him of the fresh and crisp scent of laundry left to dry in the sun.
Leonard’s a doctor, not a physicist, so can’t really explain how what just happened happened how it did. What he does know is that he’d been riding home, but now his bike is under the front bumper of a Toyota and he is on the unforgiving asphalt. He’s conscious and able to get his feet under him which is a good sign. He stands up and stomps over to the driver’s side of the car.
“It’s a goddamn stop sign, you seen one before?” he yells through the window, gesturing wildly at the stop sign the driver must have rolled through just before striking him. “Eight sides, red, says S-T-O-P on it?”
“Bones, you’re starting to sound like me, telling drivers off.”
“Jesus, kid. Where the hell did you come from? You got a tracking device on me or something?”
Before Jim can answer, they are distracted by the sound of scraping metal, as the driver of the car backs up, freeing Leonard’s bike, then pulls around them and drives away.
“What the f*ck? Did you get their license plate, Jim? What kind of person just drives off like that? We gotta follow them!”
“Not worth it, Bones. SFPD is not going to give a sh*t, I promise you.”
“Goddamnit.”
“Looks like you got some gnarly road rash on your arm there. You hurting anywhere else?”
Driven by the shock of finding himself on the ground suddenly, Leonard hadn’t paused to take stock of himself. He turns his arm over to find that Jim’s right, there is an abrasion from his elbow down to his wrist, with some asphalt and lord knows what else mixed in for good measure. He also gets the sense he’s going to have a nasty bruise on his hip by the morning.
“You hit your head at all?”
“I don’t think so, but it’s kinda a blur so I’m not sure.”
Jim steps closer, putting one hand on Leonard’s shoulder and the other on Leonard’s chin as he gently tilts his head to examine his helmet. “Oh yeah, looks like you took a hit on the side here. Your head feeling okay?”
Leonard tries to focus on his head, but finds himself distracted by Jim’s warm hand on his face and the hint of worry in Jim’s blue eyes.
“Maybe a bit of a headache,” he says, taking a step back from Jim, “but I think it’s pretty mild. I’ll have someone check me out at work tomorrow.” Jim’s messenger bag is stuffed full of deliveries he needs to make. “You should get back to work.”
“Bones, I’m not going to leave you here all banged up with a busted bike. Let me help you get home. Besides, I think you’ve still got my favorite sweatshirt. Just give me a sec to call dispatch and have them send someone to take this stuff.”
Before Leonard can protest, Jim’s on his walkie-talkie. “Kirk to base. Uhura! I’ve got to help a friend who just had a run in with a car.”
The other end of the call is too muffled for Leonard to put the energy into parsing.
“Yeah, he’s all right, just a little banged up…. No, not a messenger, just a cute guy I know.” Leonard rolls his eyes as Jim winks at him. “Can you send someone else to pick up my deliveries? I’m at 17th and Hoff…. Yeah, yeah, I know…. Thank you, I owe you a drink…. No, no, I insist. You know you want to... Kirk out.”
Jim turns back to Leonard. “Someone should be by soon. You’re gonna have to actually tell me where you live now.”
“Frederick Street, near Golden Gate Park.”
“Okay, so like two and a half miles from here. You think you’re good to walk that? Do you want me to call a cab for us?”
“No, no, I’m good to walk.” Leonard hopes this is true but a walk sounds good to clear his head and will spare him the logistics of figuring out what to do with his bike and retrieving it later.
“Why didn’t you pick somewhere closer to work for you?”
“I was apartment hunting from across the country so was mostly guessing, but I have shifts at UCSF too so at least that’s close. Where do you live?”
“Oakland.”
“All the way out in Oakland?” Leonard still hasn’t gotten a good sense of Bay Area geography in his year in California, but everyone makes it sound like Oakland might as well be another state.
“Dunno what you think a bike messenger makes, but it sure as sh*t’s not going to get me much this side of the bridge, even after the dot com bust.”
They wait a few minutes more until another messenger shows up, and Jim transfers what was in his bag to him, “I owe you, Sulu!”
“No worries, man. This your doctor buddy, Kirk?”
“That’s him.”
“Take care, doc!” Sulu shouts as he rides off, running the red light at the end of the block.
Leonard raises an eyebrow at Jim, “Your doctor buddy?”
“Sulu’s my roommate too. I maybe mentioned you to him.”
“The roommate who helped you get the cast off?”
“Yep.”
“I hope you were telling him that he’d gotten himself the number two spot on your doctor buddy’s list of idiots.”
“Does that mean I’m number one?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
The front wheel and fork of Leonard’s bike are bent enough to make it impossible to roll so Jim hands Leonard his bike to wheel, and carries Leonard’s bike, threading his arm through the frame to rest it on his shoulder. “All right, let’s go.”
Forty-five minutes later it’s dusk and they’re standing out front of his apartment under the red gum tree. If he’s honest, Leonard’s a little tired and dazed, but the walk had gone quickly.
Jim spent the time regaling Leonard with stories about his first summer detasseling corn back in Iowa. Leonard still isn’t sure what corn detasseling actually entails—there was some tangent about corn pollination he didn’t quite follow—or that Jim hadn’t made it out of whole cloth. In Jim’s telling it involved forging his mom’s signature to get hired when he was twelve, a sexual awakening with an older boy on the bus out to the cornfields, and the worst sunburn of his life. Leonard knows he should find the whole thing horrifying, but he can’t help but laugh along with Jim.
Maybe he is concussed.
“My grandma would roll over in her grave if I didn’t invite you in after that. She’d still be embarrassed that the best I’ve got to offer you is some leftover pho and a couch to sleep on if you don’t want to trek back to Oakland tonight, but it’s yours if you want it.”
“Pho sounds good.”
Leonard takes it as a good sign he still has it together enough to notice Jim neither accepts nor declines the couch.
Inside the apartment, Leonard starts the pho reheating and asks Jim to mind it while he cleans out his road rash. The soap and water sting but he’s able to get the worst of the road grime cleaned out. Getting the gauze taped on properly is trickier. He considers asking Jim for a hand, thinking back to Jim standing close to him, warm fingers on his face, looking at him with an assessing concern, but it seems like it should hold for the night. He can replace it with Tegaderm at work tomorrow.
Back in the living area, he’s surprised to see that Jim had managed to find bowls, spoons, and even the stash of take-out chopsticks that’s accumulated. At the small dining table, he’s set a place for each of them, with the plastic tub of bean sprouts, herbs, chilis, and lime in the center. It’s downright domestic from a kid who brings the word feral to mind. Leonard also realizes it’s the first time he’s shared a meal with anyone in his apartment.
Jim gives him a small, diffident smile that seems like it needs some kind of response.
“Thanks for helping me out today, Jim.”
“It’s no problem, Bones. You’ve helped me out too.”
“It’s in my job description, kid. You could be meaner than an acre full of snakes and look like eight miles of bad road, and I’d still have to take care of you in the ED.”
“Your job description mentions sneaking recalcitrant patients in for x-rays?”
Damn. Leonard’s reminded again that nothing got past this kid. Even if he doesn’t say anything at the time, he’ll wait until the opportune moment to deploy whatever information he’s been stockpiling.
“Sometimes we need to take non-traditional approaches with noncompliant patients.”
“Is that what they’re calling it now?”
“Should I even ask if you’ve talked with ortho about your wrist?”
“Not if you don’t want to ruin the mood.”
Leonard decides to let it slide for the night, figuring it to be a better thank you than the leftover pho or his couch. “Fine.”
“Do you want me to stay? Aren’t I supposed to make sure you don’t fall asleep or something?”
“And where’d you get your M.D., Dr. Kirk? University of Daytime TV? It was a bump, I’m not going to slip into a coma overnight, but you can stay if you want. I’ll grab you a blanket and a better pillow. I’ve got your sweatshirt still too.”
While Leonard’s fishing around in his bedroom closet looking for a spare pillowcase, Jim keeps talking from the main room, just louder to compensate for the distance. “You know you’re gonna need a new bike, let me take you to my friend’s shop. Maybe this weekend?”
“Sounds good, kid,” he calls back. Leonard would have agreed to just about anything if it meant he could go lie down.
Once he’s in his own bed, Leonard tries to untangle whatever is going on between him and Jim. How did they get from Leonard treating him in the ED to Jim sleeping on his couch? He tries to think about it like a disease. When was the exposure and the clinical onset? Was it that day at the stop light? Or later at the bar? He’s missing something, but the post-adrenaline rush fatigue catches up with him before he can start to make any progress.
When Leonard wakes up in the morning, Jim’s already left, leaving the blanket neatly folded at the end of the couch with the pillow on top of it. Leonard ignores the prickle of disappointment and starts his morning routine. It isn’t until he’s fixed his coffee and oatmeal that he notices his phone is blinking. He has a text message from a number saved as “Noncompliant Hottie” that just says had 2 go 2 work. lmk ur alive.
He considers pretending he doesn’t know who it’s from, but that seems ungrateful so he replies Still alive, thanks before closing his phone.
Two days later there's another message from Noncompliant Hottie: u off tmrw? He finds himself typing a reply even as he wishes he’d ignored Jim’s first message. In the end, he appreciates having Jim’s company on this particular errand. Jim knows his stuff and doesn’t even try to talk Leonard into getting some deathtrap like his with no gears or no brakes.
“You should get a new helmet at Scotty’s too. They aren’t as strong after an impact like that,” Jim says. They’re walking back to a store they had started at, Jim’s friend Scotty’s shop, now that Leonard has made up his mind.
“And here I wouldn’t have pegged you to be such a helmet expert.”
“Look, if you’re gonna wear one, it should at least work.”
“If I get you a helmet will you wear it?” he asks Jim. He’s tried not to get too involved in Jim and his choices, but Leonard’s seen enough life-ending and life-ruining head injuries that he can’t help himself here. Jim thinks he’s invincible, and he’s just not.
“I had one.”
“And?”
“It was right when I first started, definitely made me stand out as a rookie. Got hit a few months in, my head hit the pavement, my helmet split in two and I just never replaced it.”
“Good god. You’re telling me your helmet, by your own account, probably saved you a skull fracture and your conclusion was to stop wearing one?”
“Guess so, but I’m a much better rider now. Know all the dumb sh*t cagers are going to do.” Before Leonard can point out that he only really knows Jim because Jim got hit by someone, Jim continues, “Besides, if it’s really bad it’s not like a helmet’s going to help. A helmet wouldn’t have saved my dad.”
“Wait, what?” Leonard regrets his words as soon as he says it, but Jim hasn’t ever really talked about his family before, and especially not that his dad’s dead. Leonard would remember that.
“Your bedside manner always this bad?” Leonard glances at Jim, but he doesn't actually look offended. “It was back in ‘83. My parents came out here for a short vacation for New Year’s, to get away from the cold in Iowa, and my dad was doing a short bike tour with friends along the coast. He was getting to the end, when he was hit from behind by a driver, died at the scene.”
“That’s awful. I’m sorry, Jim”
“It was before I was born, well, the day I was born. I never knew him or anything.”
Everything real Leonard knows about Jim has only come out sideways and been followed by a retreat of some kind. He figures it doesn’t make a difference then if he goes ahead and asks the obvious question. Or maybe Jim is waiting for him to.
“The day you were born?”
“Yeah, my mom was like seven months pregnant with me at the time, had a toddler back home, when Highway Patrol showed up at her friends’ house to tell her her husband was dead. Went into labor that day. Everyone says it doesn’t work like that, but that seems like more than a coincidence to me. I weighed less than three pounds or something when I was born and had to stay in the hospital here for a while before I could go back to Iowa with her.”
“Jesus, Jim, that’s terrible.” Leonard’s chest tightens at the depth of Jim’s losses.
“Anyway, I know you want me to tell you yes, but no, I wouldn’t wear it. C’mon, new bike day. Let’s go.”
Leonard’s brain had been busy trying to remember back to his peds rotation, inventorying the long-term health effects of premature birth, and what they said in his psych and childhood development classes about maternal-infant attachment and the impacts of adverse childhood experiences. He hadn’t realized they were back at Scotty’s shop where Jim is holding the door open for him, waiting, smiling and nonchalant.
Leonard’s walking down the hall of the hospital, drafting a mental inventory of the many things administrators must have forgotten about practicing medicine if they knew them in the first place, after another pointless meeting about bullsh*t metrics, when he hears galloping footsteps behind him. Further away someone is yelling, “Stop! Security!”
The ED attracts more of this kind of nonsense; it’s unusual for security to need to deal with someone up here. This is an older wing with just labs, offices, and meeting rooms, and the public shouldn’t need or even be able to get up here at all.
Leonard turns around to see what the ruckus is about and is nearly run over by Jim Kirk, sprinting down the hall.
“Bones, help me!”
His badge doesn’t work on the first door he tries. The next one works though and they tumble into a small supply room.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He looks Jim up and down, it doesn’t seem like he’s injured or otherwise in need of medical attention.
“Had some samples I needed to deliver to the Rosenblum Lab,” Jim starts, a little breathless. “I didn’t have time to go through security and get signed in, so I went a different way I know. But then the staircase I was going to use to get back down was locked, so I had to find another way out. It set off an alarm, then security stopped me, and I told them I was supposed to be meeting you but they didn’t believe me, so I made a run for it.”
“You used my name? Don’t drag me into this, damn it.”
“Says the man who dragged me into a storage closet.”
Leonard rolls his eyes. “Aren’t you going to be late now anyway? If you’d actually signed in with security when you got here, you’d already be on your merry way.”
“Nah, I needed the time on the front end to make the delivery. I’m golden now. Besides, then I wouldn’t be in here with you.” Jim gives a wink and Leonard is suddenly aware of how close he and Jim are standing amid the shelving packed with carefully organized supplies.
“Let’s get out of here. I’ll go talk to security.”
“What, why? The coast is probably clear now. Just help me get out.”
“This isn’t the Bumf*ck, Iowa Police Department, Jim. They’re not going to say ‘Oh, I don’t know where that guy went. Maybe we should just forget about him.’”
Leonard grabs Jim by his bicep and marches him down the hallway like his daddy did when he made him apologize to Ms. Louise for trampling through her prized tomato plants during a fierce neighborhood game of capture the flag.
The guards have already turned onto the next hall in their search for Jim, so Leonard has to shout to get their attention, “Ma’am! Sir!”
When they meet, he offers his hand to both officers, keeping his other firmly on Jim. “Tom, Kathy. I’m Dr. McCoy. I usually work down in the ED but had some business up here. My apologies for the trouble my patient caused. I’m going to take him back down and make sure he gets the care he needs.”
He wills Jim to keep his fool mouth shut and let him handle this.
“Are you sure you’re okay with him, Dr. McCoy?” Tom asks. “Do you want us to escort you both downstairs? This area is only open to medical center staff and he shouldn’t be up here”
“I’m much obliged, but that won’t be necessary. I can take it from here. He’s just confused, not dangerous. One too many hits to the head, you know? I appreciate your help. I hope y’all have a good rest of your shift.”
He turns himself and Jim around, a firm signal that the conversation is over and leads Jim to the nearest elevator.
Jim bursts out laughing as soon as the elevator doors close, “Holy sh*t, Bones. Lying to security officers. I didn’t think you had it in you, but damn. Your Southern drawl is like a super power. That was amazing.”
Under different circ*mstances Leonard might have found a certain pleasure in impressing Jim, but between the bullsh*t meeting and now this, he isn’t in the mood. “Goddamnit, Jim. What the hell were you thinking? You were about three minutes away from getting charged with trespassing. Don’t get it in your head that I’m saving your ass like that again.”
Jim ignores his anger to give a gentle tug at the lapels of his coat. “Haven’t seen you in the white coat before. Lookin’ sharp, Dr. McCoy.”
Leonard huffs. Putting it on over his usual scrubs was his one concession to the meeting, but now he wishes he’d skipped it.
With a ding, the elevator stops and a pack of nurses gets on, chatting happily. Jim occupies himself trying to make eyes at one of them, and Leonard gets to finish their ride down to the ground level in silence.
“When are you off work? Can I buy you a drink to say thank you?” Jim asks as Leonard escorts him to the exit.
“I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day.”
“C’mon, just one drink, Bones.”
He knows he shouldn’t reward Jim’s antics, but agreeing is the fastest way to get Jim out of here so he can finally get back to work. It would at the very least be another opportunity to prod Jim about getting his wrist looked at. And he wouldn’t say it to Jim, but he did enjoy Jim’s company. Or he did when Jim wasn’t trying to circumvent hospital policies and making it Leonard’s problem too.
“I should be out by 8:30. Where do you want to meet?”
“You know the Richmond Social Club? Over at Balboa and 10th?” Leonard has no idea where Jim’s talking about, and it must show because Jim just says, “I’ll call you later and explain.”
After his shift, Leonard has a voicemail from Jim with an address and a suggested route. Leonard jots down Jim’s directions and sets out. It’s a less than fifteen minute ride, and he’s surprised to find Jim’s route can be described as reasonable, with a cut through the park on the bike trail, the air scented with eucalyptus, and then on to quieter residential streets.
The bar’s a good choice too. It’s tucked away and feels like a neighborhood watering hole: just lively enough with a jukebox, but no TVs blaring football games, unfancy enough to keep tech douchebags away, but not so divey that there’s only bottom-shelf liquor. He also appreciates that it’s on the other side of the park from the hospital, so there’s no chance of running into anyone from work.
Jim’s at the bar with a beer, turned slightly to the guy sitting two seats down from him, and Leonard can tell from the door Jim’s probably flirting with him, but when Leonard slides in on the other side of Jim, he’s greeted with a hearty clap on the shoulder, “Bones, you came!”
“Glad to see you didn’t get yourself arrested in the six hours since I last saw you.”
“Not yet, but the night is young. Let me get you that drink first though. What’ll it be?”
“I’ll do a Knob Creek 9 year, neat.”
“Not a cheap date, huh?”
“Not your date, and pretty sure your bail would have been more than that so it sounds like a bargain to me.”
When Leonard has his drink, Jim tips his beer bottle to him and Leonard can’t begrudge him a toast, “To a clean record and a quiet night.”
“Don’t know if I’d go that far,” Jim says with a smile as they clink their drinks together.
“So I’ve been thinking—” Jim starts when he’s finished his mouthful of beer.
“Is that right?”
“—and I have a proposal for you,” Jim continues, ignoring Leonard’s interruption. Leonard raises an eyebrow, skeptical of whatever’s about to come out of Jim’s mouth but still undeniably curious. “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios so how about I do the surgery, get my arm fixed up, and then you can take me out on a date?”
“Wouldn’t having your wrist fixed count as a win on its own? And you’re forgetting, I don’t date patients. Or smokers, if you want to go ahead and add that to the list.”
Jim doesn’t answer, just co*cks his head and bats his goddamn eyelashes.
“I’m a doctor, Jim, I’m busy. I don’t have time for a relationship.” Other docs seem to figure out how to make it all work, but Jocelyn had always hated his hours and the ever-changing schedule, even as she was racking up billable hours at the firm.
“You’re the one who wasn’t even sure about a date, and now you’re talking about a relationship. And you accused me of taking things fast. But you probably don’t do casual, do you, Bones?”
Sure, there’d been some hook-ups and friends with benefits in college before Jocelyn, and then some one-night stands since the divorce. He wanted to have fun with it, tried to recast the whole divorce as something liberating and not just another failure in a line of them, but it never really worked. He found the whole process of finding partners tedious and unfulfilling. It was bad enough in noisy bars, but out here everyone seemed to be doing it through Craigslist which had the added excitement of not knowing if you were about to meet up with a serial killer. And he knows it makes him old-fashioned, but he just genuinely likes sex better with people he knows. At the same time, he’s in the quandary of being down right unfit for a relationship at present. Not that Jim really seems like the relationship type anyway.
“Thought you didn’t have the money,” Leonard replies, side-stepping Jim’s question.
“There’s a partner at one of the law firms I do a lot of work for that’s taken a certain interest in me, and I think he’d be willing to help out. He’s some Lance Armstrong-wannabe who spends his money on a bike that costs more than I make in a year to ride around Marin on the weekends. He wants me to make a move to pro, he’s got an in with a team and everything.”
“If you’ve got some sugar daddy lawyer interested in you, how come you’re barking up my tree?”
“No, no, not like that. Gross. Pretty sure it’s some sort of fatherly thing.”
“Uh huh.”
“There’s a lot of ‘genius-level repeat offender,’ ‘potential,’ ‘do better,’ blah blah blah with him.”
“Okay then Mr. Genius, are you going to do it?”
“What? No way, can you imagine me in Lycra? And the team captain totally has a stick up his ass.”
“So what? Your plan to just be a fifty year old messenger someday?”
“Dunno.” Jim gives a shrug. “Never really thought I’d make it that long.”
Jim’s just as blasé about this as he was when he told Leonard about his dad, but Leonard can’t help but feel he’d gone and stepped into something he shouldn’t have. He’d read Jim as a co*cky kid who thought he was invincible. But it’s not that. Jim just doesn’t care.
“Look, Jim…” sh*t. He wishes he had something to tell the kid. He remembers being newly eighteen that disastrous freshman year of college out of state, staring down at the Charles River from the red brick bridge, having read too much Faulkner, the relentless gray of the Cambridge February sky taunting him in the reflection below. There were no magic words that pulled him away, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting to find them now.
“You’re cute when you worry, Bones, but don’t. I know you think I’ve got a death wish, but it’s more like….” Jim takes a long drink of his beer before continuing. “My dad didn’t live to see thirty. Growing up, everyone made it clear to me that I’d never live up to him, so why would I get more time than him? And even if I do, you can make all the plans you want, get married, go pro, take your California vacation, whatever it is, and it can all get blown up anyway.”
It’s hard to argue against that when all of his own well-laid plans have turned to dust, but Leonard’s getting ready to try when Jim’s phone beeps. Jim flips it open, and suddenly his self-satisfied, bordering on lascivious smile is back as he types out a response. The gloom of Jim’s nihilism dissipates with the grin, but Leonard knows it’s not gone for real, not anymore than the fog here ever is.
“Sorry, to cut and run, Bones. I gotta go.” Jim is already out of his stool and tossing his bag on over his shoulder.
“No, no. I can see your dance card’s awfully full. Besides, I’d only signed up for the one drink you owed me.”
“Thanks again. And don’t forget my offer, Bones,” Jim calls, walking backwards towards the door.
“Good night, Jim.”
Leonard takes the last sip of his drink, caramel-sweet on his tongue, the burn mellowed now to the familiar warmth that always makes it seem a little less important not to be alone.
